The present invention generally relates to a recording apparatus for recording musical tones generated by an electronic musical instrument which is played based on performance information inputted from a keyboard or a computer, and more particularly to a multi-recording apparatus capable of multi-recording inputted musical tones in addition to pre-recorded musical tones.
Conventionally, an automatic performance apparatus as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58-211191 is known as a conventional performance recording and reproducing apparatus. This conventional apparatus provides a performance data memory for storing key data representative of the depressed keys, key event timing data representative of key-on and key-off timings of each key and tone generating channel data representative of a channel of a tone generating circuit, whereby a musical tone having a different tone color can be recorded on and reproduced from each channel.
However, the above conventional apparatus is merely a performance recording apparatus, hence, the conventional apparatus is disadvantageous in that the conventional apparatus can not record new musical tones on a pre-recorded channel while reproducing the pre-recorded musical tones. More specifically, the conventional apparatus can record performance information on plural recording channels based on a time-division system, and the conventional apparatus can simultaneously reproduce the recorded performance information from such plural recording channels. However, the conventional apparatus can not perform a real multi-recording. More specifically, the conventional apparatus can not record newly inputted information on the pre-recorded channel while reproducing pre-recorded information from such pre-recorded channel. By increasing a channel number, it is possible to obtain an advantage similar to that of the multi-recording. However, there are many restrictions concerning information quantity (such as the channel number) and the like. Hence, it is difficult to increase the channel number.
In the case where the information is recorded on a nonrecorded channel in the conventional apparatus, the information of the pre-recorded channel is read from a desirable bank of a memory, and then the read information is reformed with the inputted performance data. Such reformed information is temporarily written into the non-recorded channel, and then such reformed information is transferred to the original bank at a time when a recording mode is completed. In this case, timing data after the above-mentioned reformation are calculated out based on a clock value at every time when each event data are written in. Therefore, if an event number is increased or writing timings are delayed due to processes for inputted data or switching operations, a time interval among pre-recorded event information must be extended. As a result, a performance period of whole musical tune must be changed.
In addition, the conventional apparatus does not output the inputted performance information but generates musical tones corresponding to the inputted performance information by an input unit such as a keyboard performance unit in a recording period. Hence, the conventional apparatus can not reproduce the musical tones similar to the recorded musical tones.
Further, when a recording is completed while a player keeps a key depressing in the recording period, the conventional apparatus must keep a musical tone corresponding to the depressed key generating at a time when a performance is completed in a reproducing period. Similarly, when a reproducing is completed while a reproduced musical tone is kept generating, such reproduced musical tone must be kept generating.